Diving coach leaves Cougars after 24 years with school

Longtime University of Houston head diving coach Jane Figueiredo has resigned her position to become the head coach of the British Diving High Performance Center in London, the school announced Thursday.

Former UH All-American Yulia Pakhalina, a five-time national champion and Olympian, will serve as interim diving coach for the remainder of the 2014 season.

Figueiredo won 12 consecutive Conference USA Diving Coach of the Year awards and was a four-time NCAA Diving Coach of the Year. During a 24-year tenure at UH, Figueiredo had 14 divers earn 51 All-America honors and two divers combine for eight NCAA titles. She was inducted into the school’s Hall of Honor in 2010.

“There is no simple way to capture how much of a legacy Jane leaves with us at the University of Houston,” UH head swimming coach Rich Murphy said.

At UH, Pakhalina won five national championships, was a two-time NCAA Diver of the Year and won 64 of 66 collegiate diving events. As an Olympian for her native Russia, Pakhalina won five medals – gold in the 3-meter synchronized diving event in Sydney (2000), silver (3-meter synchronized) and bronze (3-meter individual springboard) in Athens (2004) and two silvers in the same events in Beijing (2008).